


with no intent to fall apart

by impossiblyincredible



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Philly Pies (Blaseball Team), Season 7 Day 63, takes place immediately after her unshelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblyincredible/pseuds/impossiblyincredible
Summary: Jessica Telephone is unshelled. Forty minutes later, she hits a two-run home run.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	with no intent to fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> hello! title's from "alone and sublime" by mother mother which is absolutely a jesstel song and is also my recommended listening
> 
> a giant metaphorical bouquet to reblase i literally could not have written this without triple checking everything there <3
> 
> hope you enjoy!

“It’s a non-issue. I can play.” Her voice is rough from disuse, but she feels ready to go, and her grip on her bat is as solid as it’s ever been. They’re not going to bench her. They will  _ not _ bench her.

Beasley sighs, exchanging a glance with someone over Jessica’s shoulder, who she doesn’t bother looking at. She can almost hear what they’re thinking, and she has to swallow down a flash of irritation; she was shelled, for fuck’s sake, she didn’t  _ die_. And she’s more than capable of reading between the lines of whatever the team talked about, whatever contingency plans they’d made while she was trapped.

Let Jessica rest, keep Jessica safe, spend half a season figuring out how to replace her after she’s inevitably too traumatized to do her job, even though that’s what she’d signed up to do in the first place. 

“I said,” Jessica repeats, “I’m gonna play.” And God help the poor motherfucker who insinuates she should take it easy lest she _strike out_.

A voice from the other end of the dugout. “Bee, we should put her in the lineup.” Eduardo leans against the wall, watching the argument, and Jessica turns back to Beasley, raising her eyebrows as if to say  _ See, Eduardo doesn’t even  _ like _ me and he agrees_.

“Look, I'm just—”

“We’re down a run right now, and hopefully the Talkers are startled enough that Jessica can psych them out,” Eduardo says, and actually, Jessica has to give him points for that. She hadn’t even glanced at the score. “And look at her. I mean, she’s feeling fine enough to argue.”

A beat, another sigh. Then, to Jessica: “Fine. You’ll take your usual place, just after me.”

Jessica nods once. It’s not like she was asking Beasley’s  _ permission _ to take her turn at bat, but she doesn’t know what the umpires would do if a rogue player stepped out onto the field, and hell, she just got out of that peanut. She doesn’t plan on being incinerated just yet.

God, but that’d give the tabloids something funny, wouldn’t it? Star player Jessica Telephone unceremoniously burned up immediately after unshelling, more on page six. They’d make her a lesson for the kids, a moral of the story, the monster at the end of the book. Don’t anger the gods, sweetheart, or you’ll end up like poor Jessica Telephone, too goddamned stupid to realize her time in the spotlight’s over.

Fuck that.  _ Fuck _ that. It isn’t over. If she could get out, so can Nagomi, and it’ll just be a matter of time before it’s the two of them again, the league’s highest-ranked batters vying for the top spot. And after their time in their own respective shells… maybe they could go for a drink, one of these days.

But now’s hardly the time to be sentimental, not when the whole world will be watching, waiting for her to crash and burn. The thing is, she hasn’t touched a bat in six months, nor has she properly conditioned in longer than that, and everyone knows it. But none of that matters. It’s her job to  _ prove _ it doesn’t matter.

Jessica will make it through this game, then through the press conference afterward, and then through whatever’s next, and more importantly, she'll do it effortlessly. 

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. 

The rest of the inning flies by, and the next time Jessica snaps her attention back to what’s going on, it’s the top of the eighth, the Pies are back up, and the score's tilted further toward the Talkers. Great.

Jaxon sidles up to her as she watches the game, and she sighs, already over whatever he's about to say.

“Hey, Jess—can I call you—” 

“Call me Jessica.”

Jaxon’s voice sounds startlingly similar to her brother's, and even Sebastian only ever called her that on the good days. The Jess that joined the league in season one is a different person than the Jessica that got shelled, is the thing, and the distinction between the two is probably the only thing still keeping her sane

"Jessica, then," Jaxon says, shrugging. “Just thought you might wanna know that when Morse gets nervous, he pitches straight, and he’s looking pretty shaken up right now. I think you rattled him bad.”

Despite everything, that sets off a twist of satisfaction in Jessica’s gut. If she can rattle pitchers even now, fresh out of a peanut, not having played in months, then maybe there’s some hope yet. She turns, looks Jaxon up and down; he must’ve joined the Pies after she was shelled, because she doesn’t recognize his face. Come to think of it, she can’t remember learning his name either. Not like it matters, though, not when he’s talking strategy.

“Huh. Pitches straight down the middle?”

Jaxon nods.

“Well.” She eyes Morse, preparing to pitch at Patterson. He doesn’t  _ look _ nervous. “Good to know.”

A small pause, dragged out long enough to be awkward, and then Jaxon sighs, pushes himself off the fence, turning to head back to the dugout. Jessica wonders if she should’ve thanked him. There’s still time to call out a quick  _ Thanks! _ , but as she’s considering it, he disappears into the dugout. Oh well, she thinks, turning her attention back to the game. It’s not like they’d been particularly close, anyway.

The eighth inning melts into the ninth, and suddenly, Eduardo’s pitching, and Jessica’s next up in the lineup. She’s fiercely, wildly,  _ terribly _ ready to play. It’s not the same as wanting to play, exactly—it was never about wanting to play, not even at the very beginning. It was just something you did. Something you keep doing.

Play the game, run the numbers, be so fast the fire can’t catch you. It’s worked so far, hasn’t it? 

Eduardo steals second. Beasley strikes out, and when they walk back to the dugout, wishing her good luck, all they see is her relaxed, easy smile. Always smile. None of this affects you, really, because you’re the best batter in the league. You don’t  _ feel _ pressure.

She steps out onto the field, met by a deafening rumble from the crowd. Don't wince. Do  _ not _ freeze. It doesn't matter that this is the loudest thing you've heard in months, or that you're white-knuckling your bat, or that the fans would be equally happy to see your burnt-up body collapsed on the field. Fucking  _ focus_.

Jessica grins, bold and audacious and everything they know Jessica Telephone to be, and the cheers grow even louder. She turns, bares her teeth at Morse, stepping up to the plate, and you know what? Maybe Jaxon was right. Even from this distance, she can see Morse swallow hard, and she prepares herself for a pitch straight down the center of home plate.

Behind the pitcher’s mound, with one foot on second base, she sees Eduardo, his teal jersey standing out against the white Talkers uniforms. He meets her eyes, nods once. Not reassurance, coming from him, but… it’s something. 

Morse pitches. She swings, misses, and for a second her blood runs cold. But the umpire rules it a ball, and she lets out a sharp exhale. 

Another pitch. Another swing, another ball. Fuck, she'd almost prefer a strikeout at this point—better than all this suspense.

Another pitch, straight toward the center of the strike zone. This time, her bat connects with the ball, and before she even lets go of her bat and runs, she  _ knows _ it’ll go soaring past the outfield.

The stadium goes silent, for one incandescent moment, and then the crowd  _ screams_.

**Author's Note:**

> i've got jesstel disease now unfortunately. c'est la vie
> 
> thanks for reading! feel free to leave a comment, or i'm also on tumblr as @goodwinmorin if you wanna talk there <3


End file.
